Horse cult

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As a horse cult , on the one hand the worship of horses or corresponding gods, but also the mere inclusion of horses in cultic contexts in the sepulchral culture was understood. The role in contexts of a religious nature can be proven archaeologically up to the Bronze and Iron Ages , but a corresponding “cult” is difficult to differentiate from the worship of horse-shaped gods or from those who stood for the protection of animals. The horse may have been considered divine, a sacred animal associated with a particular deity, or a totem that personified a king or warrior. While the horse cults in both meanings were initially almost exclusively associated with the Indo-European cultures, in the early Middle Ages they can also be documented for some Turkic peoples , but the term “horse cult” was also introduced for Japan and China. It is found mainly in older literature.

Horse cult and the question of the earliest domestication

Hayagriva , representation of Shivakamasundari, the Nataraja companion, in the Nataraja temple in Chidambaram

The prehistoric Alexander Häusler noted in 2002 how uncertain both the origin and the content of the so-called 'horse cult' were and still are : “Some authors believe that the Srednij Stog culture of Ukraine, which is widespread east of the lower Dnieper, is the oldest center of horse domestication in Europe in front. A distinct horse cult would have existed here. ”The most important site was Dereivka . "As evidence of a horse cult in Dereivka, a place on the edge of the settlement is named, but in which there is apparently the secondary mixture of found layers of different cultures." The dates from the 5th and 4th millennium BC. The site dated to the 3rd century BC was the starting point for horse domestication, but more recent re-dating has shown that the horse remains belong to the Scythian period . Archaeozoologists doubt whether they are even the bones of domesticated horses. They are more likely to assume that wild horses have been hunted. Possibly there was no region from which horse keeping started, but this happened in many places.

Indo-Europeans

Since the 2nd millennium BC The worship of the horse-headed deity Hayagriva is passed down in India , an incarnation of Vishnu , which is associated with education and knowledge. Hayagriva rescued the Vedas that had been stolen by a demon from the bottom of the sea. The killing of a horse ( aśvamedha ) was reserved for the ruler in the cult . The Hayagriva cult is widespread in Hinduism to the present day. In Buddhist-Lamaist Tibet , too , he belongs to a group of Dharmapala , protective deities.

A religious meaning of the horse is from the 2nd millennium BC. It is also tangible in Asia Minor , for example in the myth of the Luwian Kizzuwatna , in cult, such as the burnt offering , which can only be performed by the king , or the royal burial ritual. The latter was related to the Indo-European idea of ​​the afterlife as pasture. In addition to other competitions, chariot races are also attested in a cultic context, but especially the chariot . In a Hittite prayer from the 15th century BC The quadriga of the sun god is mentioned. In the 14th / 13th centuries, the horse patron goddesses Malija and Pirwa / Pirinkir, from Southeast Asia Minor, were probably linked to Century BC BC in the Levant and in Egypt widespread iconography of the related goddess Astarte / Ashera or Anat , standing or riding on a horse .

Although horses also appear in the religious ideas and rituals of non-Indo-European cultures, such as the Assyrians , research does not speak of a 'horse cult'. White horses were dedicated to the god Aššur and the moon god of Ḫarran . The same is reported in the Bible where the kings of Judah at the entrance to the Lord - the temple in honor of the sun horses lined up ( 2 Kings 23:11  EU ).

The Indo-European Persians were "not alien to horse cult and sacrifice". According to Arrian (Anab. Alex. 6.29) a horse was sacrificed every month at the tomb of Cyrus ; if one follows Strabo (Geography XI, 14, 9), the satrap of Armenia sacrificed 2000 foals to the great king every year. Xenophon also reports such extensive sacrifices (Kyrup. VIII, 3, 12).

Like other Indo-European water gods, the Greek god Poseidon was originally worshiped in the form of a horse, which was expressed in his nickname ίππος ( hippos Greek horse) or bzw.ππιος . Poseidon hippios created the original horse Skyphios , which opened springs by beating the hoof; it was also understood as the hypostasis of the Trojan horse . He had a hippodrome in Sparta , and horses were drowned in Argos in his honor. In Greek art, Poseidon drives a hippocampus or horse-drawn chariot that could cross the sea. Seafarers sometimes drowned horses as sacrifice for Poseidon for a good voyage. Former horse deities were also Athena, the Celtic Epona , but also the Roman Mars and the Etruscan Mares.

According to tradition, Demeter appeared in the cave of Phigalia with the head and mane of a horse, possibly taking up a tradition in which a non-specialized fertility god was so equipped. This is related to the myth according to which Demeter, pursued by Poseidon, turned into a fleeing mare in order to hide. Poseidon saw through the deception, turned into a stallion, and conquered it. The fruit of the connection was the horse Areion , who was able to speak human language. The winged horse Pegasus emerged from the connection between Poseidon and the gorgon Medusa .

The ability to prophesy and blessings, but also healing powers was ascribed to the fast, intelligent animal. Hence folk medicine knew multiple, in this case magical, applications of milk and fat, blood and testicles, but also the ashes of hoofs and bones.

Just as the Greeks associated the god Poseidon with horses, so did the Romans with Neptune . There was no patron goddess of horses, so the Roman cavalry adapted the Celtic goddess Epona. There was only one occasion for the sacrifice of a horse, namely the Roman tradition of the Equus October . In October, a horse race was held on the Field of Mars , at the end of which the right horse of the winning car was killed by a spear stab. The inhabitants of the Subura and those of the Via Sacra fought for the horse's head . The tail, on the other hand, was taken to the regia , where its blood dripped into the hearth fire.

Uffington White Horse

The horse was also of considerable importance in the area later known as the Celtic, the westernmost of the Indo-Europeans. The 111 meter long Uffington White Horse in England dates to the late Bronze Age (1000–700 BC). During the entire Hallstatt period , horse burials are documented in the Slovak Dolenjska group, but especially in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. These were, however, only part of the funerals of high-ranking people, while the Pannonian groups, with their more Scythian influence, limited this custom much less to the elites. The Dolenjska group thus showed similarities to the Alpine Hallstatt groups, and they apparently retained the ideas behind them for longer. During the Vekerzug culture of the late Hallstatt period in the north-east of the Pannonian Basin, individual burial of horses in pits became very common, but also parts of horses in human graves . Horse burials, often in the form of individual body parts, were also common there in the middle and lower classes. Furthermore, this attitude radiated into the western Hallstatt groups and those of the La Tène period , possibly as far as the horse-breeding Venetians of northeast Italy. Possibly the horse trade also brought changes in the ideological sphere with it.

Depiction of the horse goddess Epona, Freyming , 3rd century BC. Chr.

Epona was the Celtic goddess of horses who protected her from neglect, cruelty and accidents. In Mayence a relief shows her as a rider. Inscriptions attesting to their veneration were found in the Danube region and in Germany, Collingwood and Myres claim that their veneration spread from the Rhine and Moselle regions to Britain. Small sculptures of the Roman legionaries were supposed to protect their horses from incubi . According to the 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica from 1911, this “cult” only appeared in the imperial era.

Horse sacrifices are rare, apart from a whole herd that was found in a burial mound near Römerstein-Zainingen in Baden-Württemberg . Because of its proximity to the Scythians, it was assumed that horses were buried, but these are also very rarely found among the Celts. However, horse bones were discovered in at least 25 tumuli in southern France , sometimes entire skeletons. Burnt remains from horses were found in the Czech "Bull Rock Cave" near Adamov , around 15 km north of Brno .

The Welsh legend of Rhiannon and, if one follows Helmut Birkhan , the Irish legend of Macha point to a prehistoric horse cult. The white horse of Rhiannon is another example of the cultic worship of white horses, which has been interpreted as an Indo-European phenomenon.

In Germania, Tacitus mentions the use of white horses for divination: “..., proprium gentis equorum quoque praesagia ac monitus experiri. Publice aluntur isdem nemoribus ac lucis, candidi et nullo mortali opere contacti; quos pressos sacro curru sacerdos ac rex vel princeps civitatis comitantur hinnitusque ac Fremditus observant. Nec ulli auspicio maior fides, non solum apud plebem, sed apud proceres, apud sacerdotes; se enim ministros deorum, illos conscios putant. "

“... but the prophecy and advice given by the horse are peculiar to them. In the above-mentioned groves and woods, steeds are kept by the community roads, snow-white and never desecrated through earthly service. These are harnessed to the holy chariots and the priest with the king or other head of state walks by and watches the neighing and snorting of the animals. No other kind of sign enjoys confidence like this, not only among the multitudes but also among the chiefs and priests; the latter two regard those animals as initiates of the gods, themselves as mediators .. "

Horse oracle, imaginative history painting by Józef Ryszkiewicz (1856–1925), 1890

The Jaromarsburg , a temple fortress at Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen , was the religious center of the Slavic Ranen in the early Middle Ages. The temple of the deity Svantevit housed a horse oracle , in which the behavior of a white stallion was used to infer peace or war. Horse oracles have also been handed down from medieval cult sites such as the Pomeranian Stettin or Rethra .

Beyond the Indo-Europeans

In many cases, finds of apparently sacrificed horses led to the belief that the inhabitants who had carried out these ritual acts were also Indo-Europeans, in the case of Cyprus, Greeks. It was believed that the four Homeric horse sacrifices in the graves of the Cypriot Salamis , in which horse bones were also found, could be recognized. It was overlooked that the horses in Salamis were apparently stoned while they were killed and burned at Homer's. In any case, the oldest horse sacrifices in Cyprus are well before the Greek immigration, namely in the Bronze Age (2300–1900 BC). In Greece, however, the horse sacrifices mainly belong to the Late Helladic (1550-1060 BC). Therefore, Agata Mirva-Montoya suspects that the special role of the horse was more likely to have originated in the Middle East , as finds from Urartu and sources from the Assyrian Empire show.

The Danish ethnologist Kaj Birket-Smith wrote: “... with the Turks, before Islam, horse sacrifices regularly took place by opening the chest cavity of the animal and tearing away the arteries of the heart. Traces of horse cult and horse sacrifice can be found in the whole Indo-European area and here must have come from the Indo-European indigenous people ”. This kind of derivation of the horse cult or individual aspects of it, which one believed to have identified, migrated from there to the Kama region , then on to Finland .

Even if no horse cult was assigned to the Huns and Mongols , in 2002 Murat Ocak found such signs, at least in early Hunnic women's graves, in addition to an early Turkish cult of this kind. And even in China and Japan there was talk of a "horse cult".

literature

  • Theo Brown: Tertullian and Horse Cults in Britain. In: Folklore 61 (1950) 31-34.
  • Robert Hans van Gulik: Hayagrīva. The Mantrayānic Aspect of Horse-cult in China and Japan , 1935.
  • Ann Hyland : The Horse in the Ancient World , Sutton Publishing, Stroud 2003. ISBN 0-7509-2160-9
  • Patrice Méniel: Les Sacrifices d'animaux chez les gaulois , Editions Errance, Paris 1992. ISBN 2-87772-068-3
  • Nantonos & Ceffyl (2005) Geographical Distribution of Epona

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ This already applies to Ludolf Malten : Das Pferd im Totenglauben. In: Yearbook of the Imperial German Archaeological Institute 29 (1914) 179-256.
  2. ↑ Above all Wilhelm Koppers : Horse sacrifice and horse cult of the Indo-Europeans. An ethnological and religious studies study , Anton Pustet, Salzburg 1936; on the other hand: Robert Bleichsteiner : Horse consecration and horse races in the cult of the dead of the Caucasian peoples. In: Wilhelm Koppers (ed.): The Indo-European and Germanic question. New ways to find a solution , Anton Pustet, Salzburg 1936, pp. 414–495.
  3. ↑ Quoted from Alexander Häusler : Nomaden, Indo-Europeans, Invasion. On the creation of a myth , Halle 2002, p. 39 ( online , PDF).
  4. ↑ Alexander Häusler: Nomads, Indo-Europeans, Invasion. On the origin of a myth , Halle 2002, p. 41.
  5. ^ Gavin Floyd: An introduction to Hinduism , Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 44.
  6. ↑ Michael Jordan: Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses , 1st ed., New York 1993, 2nd ed., New York 2004, p. 117.
  7. ^ Georges Raepsaet: Horse . In: Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider (ed.): The New Pauly: Enzyklopädie der Antike . tape 9 . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2012, ISBN 978-3-534-26764-4 , Sp. 696 f .
  8. ^ Georges Raepsaet: Horse . In: Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider (ed.): The New Pauly: Enzyklopädie der Antike . tape 9 . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2012, ISBN 978-3-534-26764-4 , Sp. 696-697 .
  9. ↑ This paragraph after Torsten Gaitzsch: The horse among the Indo-Europeans. Linguistic, cultural and archaeological aspects , LIT Verlag Münster, 2011, p. 136 (quote).
  10. ↑ Will Richter : Horse. In: Der Kleine Pauly (KlP), Volume 4, Stuttgart 1972, Sp. 684.
  11. ^ Walter Burkert: Greek religion of the archaic and classical epoch , Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2011, p. 218.
  12. ↑ Pausanias 8,7,2; Cassius Dio 48.48
  13. ↑ John Heath: Prophetic Horses, Bridled Nymphs: Ovid's Metamorphosis of Ocyroe. In: Latomus 53.2 (1994) 340-353.
  14. ↑ Torsten Gaitzsch: The horse among the Indo-Europeans. Linguistic, cultural and archaeological aspects , LIT Verlag Münster, 2011, pp. 148–150.
  15. ↑ Timothy Darvill: Prehistoric Britain from the Air: A study of space, time and society , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996, p. 223.
  16. ↑ Petra Kmet'ová: "Masters of Horses" in the West, "Horse Breeders" in the East? On the Significance and Position of the Horse in the Early Iron Age Communities of the Pannonian Basin. In: R. Karl, J. Leskovar (Hrsg.): Interpretierte Eisenzeit. Case studies, methods, theory. Conference contributions to the 5th Linz Discussions on Interpretative Iron Age Archeology (= Studies on the Cultural History of Upper Austria, Volume 37), Linz 2013, pp. 247–258 ( online , PDF).
  17. ^ Robin George Collingwood, John Nowell Linton Myres: Roman Britain and the English Settlements , The Clarendon Press, 1936, pp. 268 f.
  18. ^ Theo Brown: Tertullian and Horse Cults in Britain. In: Folklore 61 (1950) 31–34, here: p. 31.
  19. ↑ Torsten Gaitzsch: The horse among the Indo-Europeans. Linguistic, cultural and archaeological aspects , LIT Verlag Münster, 2011, p. 188 f.
  20. ↑ Helmut Birkhan : Celts. Attempt to present an overall picture of their culture , Verlag der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997. S. 545.
  21. ^ Ann Hyland: The Horse in the Ancient World , Sutton Publishing, Stroud 2003, p. 6.
  22. ↑ Tacitus, c. 10 . The following translation to [] https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/tacitus/germania/chap010.html Publius Cornelius Tacitus: Die Germania - Chapter 10 , Project Gutenberg.
  23. ↑ Agata Mirva-Montoya: Learning from dead animals: horse sacrifice in ancient Salamis and the Hellenization of Cyprus. In: Jay Johnston, Fiona Probyn-Rapsey (Ed.): Animal death , Sydney University Press, 2013, pp. 169-188.
  24. ^ Contributions to Indian philology and antiquity. Walther Schubring on his 70th birthday offered by the German Indology , Cram, 1951, p. 39.
  25. ↑ Guntis Zemītis: Christian and pagan symbols from castles of the 9th-12th centuries Century in Central Latvia (Daugmale, Talsi, Mežotne). In: Michael Müller-Wille (Ed.): Rome and Byzantium in the north. Mission and change of faith in the Baltic Sea region during the 8th-14th centuries Century , Vol. 2, Franz Steiner, Mainz 1997, pp. 97–113, here: p. 104.
  26. ↑ Murat Ocak: The Turks. Early ages , Yeni Türkiye, 2002.
  27. ^ Robert Hans van Gulik: Hayagriva. The Mantrayānic Aspect of Horse-Cult in China and Japan , Leiden 1935.